


when you're with me

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23366167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: It’s a charming, idyllic scene.Daisy hates it.
Relationships: Will Daniels/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Week THIRTEEN!!! Celebrate extra 'cause it was a close one this week, y'all. 
> 
> Shout out to JD because I'm in a permanent Will/Jemma mood thanks to her fic [slightly delayed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17974796/chapters/42456812). This fic has nothing to do with that one but you should read it anyway because it is THE BEST.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

It’s a pretty neighborhood. Rows of three-story, red brick townhouses line cobblestone streets. Each townhouse has four concrete steps flanked by wrought-iron railings, leading up to doors painted in varying dark shades. There are no porches, but there are porch lights, all crafted to look like old-fashioned gas lamps.

There’s a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a lake all within walking distance. Cheery signs remind people to drive slow, because they heart their kids. Someone nearby is playing music, something classical with lots of flutes.

It’s a charming, idyllic scene.

Daisy hates it.

The townhouse she’s looking for is at the end of a row. It’s got a dark green front door, but that’s the only immediately obvious thing separating it from the other townhouses in the row (which have blue, red, black, and another blue front doors, respectively).

It takes her a good three minutes to spot the tiny security camera set in the base of the porch light.

“Thank god,” she mutters when she finally does. “Almost thought I was in the wrong place.”

(Thought…or _hoped_ , maybe.)

Now that she knows it’s the right one, she climbs the four steps to the front door. There’s a doormat: dark grey with a green vine as a border, WELCOME spelled out in fancy white calligraphy. For a doormat, it’s surprisingly spotless.

Daisy presses the doorbell. In the distance, a dog barks.

She waits.

It takes a while, but eventually the door opens. One of her least favorite people in the world regards her silently, apparently unsurprised—and even more apparently un _amused_ —to find her on his doorstep.

“Daniels,” she says flatly. “Hi.”

“Johnson,” he replies, equally flat. Is he mocking her? “Hello.”

He’s definitely mocking her. Asshole. If this wasn’t really, really important—

—but it is. “Can I come in?”

For a second, she can _see_ how bad he wants to refuse. Then he sighs and steps back, making room for her to pass.

(She makes sure to wipe her muddy boots on that nice, clean doormat on her way in.)

The inside of the townhouse is just as nice as the outside. There’s a sitting room to her left—a nice, open one with lots of natural light and even a window seat, piled high with cushions. On the right is a staircase dotted with pictures: an orchard, a meadow, a _wedding_.

Daisy looks away from the pictures. Daniels has closed and locked the front door; now he’s leaning back against it, watching her. She hates his stupid face.

“Where’s Simmons?” she asks.

Eyes holding hers, he shrugs a little. “No one named Simmons here.”

For fuck’s sake—

“Where’s _Jemma_?” she amends. And she should leave it at that—there’s a disappointed British voice in her head, reminding her that she’s in the middle of a crisis and there’s no reason to antagonize him—but he’s so smug and so _Daniels_ , here in this stupid townhouse with her best friend, that she adds, “You know, the woman you dragged away from everyone she knows and loves just when she needed them most?”

“I didn’t hold a gun to her head, Johnson,” he says, pushing off the door. “Pretty sure that was Fitz and Mackenzie.”

He’s such an asshole. “That was a _mistake_.”

“Right.” At least he looks as annoyed as she is. “Just like—”

He’s interrupted by a call of, “Will? Who was at the door?” from somewhere upstairs. Both of them look up toward the ceiling like they could see through to the woman in question. When their eyes meet again, Daniels’ expression has smoothed out.

“Have a seat,” he invites—rudely—and makes for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

Pettily, Daisy doesn’t sit down, even though every inch of her aches. She stays right where she is, next to the hall table, and picks up the little seashell sitting next to a pretty glass dish full of loose change.

Stupid seashell. Stupid glass dish. Stupid hall table in this stupid townhouse in this stupid idyllic _life_ Simmons built with Will fucking Daniels. Stupid picture of a stupid wedding Daisy found out about a week later from a stupid cheerful announcement mailer.

God, why’d it have to be Daniels? Of all possible people—honestly, even _Ward_ would’ve been better. At least Ward hated them—he would’ve kept Simmons right there, probably taken daily walks with her past the Playground’s security cameras to rub in their faces how she was with him and not them.

Daniels just convinced her to move all the way across the country and not even invite them to her freaking wedding.

She puts the seashell down before she can break it.

As she does, there’s a gasp and a delighted “Daisy!” She looks up to find Simmons at the top of the stairs. The delight drops right into horror as soon as they make eye contact.

“ _Daisy_ ,” Simmons says again, hurrying down the stairs. She’s wearing socks and the stairs are wood; she slips a little at the bottom, steadies herself against the wall, and all but skids to a stop in front of Daisy. “What _happened_?” Her eyes move over Daisy’s bruises and sling, filled with that old familiar worry. She might tsk any second. “You’re _hurt_ —has anyone looked at you?”

Usually, Daisy’d brush her off. But it’s been more than a year since she had Simmons fussing over her—more than a year since Simmons has been around to do any fussing at all. She’s not in such a hurry she can’t afford to indulge.

“Yeah, I got shot,” she admits, and a tiny, petty part of her relishes Simmons’ gasp of horror. “Couple times. It’s been a long week.”

In seconds, Simmons has fussed her right into the living room, calling over her shoulder for Daniels to fetch the first aid kit. Before she knows it, Daisy’s half-naked, getting dirt and soot and probably even blood all over Simmons’ stupid clean sofa.

She’ll never admit it, but she loves every second.

She especially loves the part where, busy tsking over the patch job Piper did on Daisy’s shoulder, Simmons barely acknowledges Daniels when he hands over the first aid kit. Daisy smiles at him smugly; he rolls his eyes.

“There any alcohol in there?” he asks Simmons. He’s using that tone Daisy _hates_ , that old we-were-stranded-on-a-hell-planet-and-have-lots-of-inside-jokes one. Absence hasn’t made her heart any fonder; it still makes her want to quake his stupid beard right off his stupid face.

Simmons, on the other hand, beams up at him. “There _is_! No need for a walk to the drugstore.”

“Good thing, too,” Daisy interjects before they can go any further on their stupid inside joke train, “because we’ve got a problem.”

“Yeah?” Daniels asks. “Who’s we?”

His tone is super rude and obviously meant to remind Daisy that he’s not SHIELD and isn’t letting Simmons be, either. But Simmons doesn’t seem to notice the rudeness.

“And where are the others?” she asks as she—owfuckOW—rubs alcohol (and possibly some freaking _scorpions_ ) over Daisy’s wounds.

“Kidnapped,” she answers as soon as she can breathe again. “Which is why _you’re_ in danger, too. Long story short: a mad scientist and his evil robot lackey kidnapped May, Coulson, Fitz, and Mack and replaced them with evil robot doubles.”

Daniels mutters something that sounds a hell of a lot like _“How could you tell?”_ The urge to quake him rises.

Simmons pauses. “Evil robot doubles who shot you?”

“Yep. I wasn’t about to go quietly.”

“Of course you weren’t,” Simmons says, voice full of fondness. Then she shoves a needle through Daisy’s skin.

“Fucking _ow_ , Simmons! Warn a girl!”

“That would only make you tense up,” Simmons says dismissively. “That was just a little local anesthetic to make suturing less painful.” She hesitates. “And…it’s not Simmons anymore.”

There’s a lot Daisy could say to that. Nice things like “you’ll always be Simmons to me” and meaner things like “really? I must’ve missed the wedding.” But Simmons was so quick to accept her own name change; after she got back from Maveth, she only called her Skye like twice before she got Daisy down.

Daisy swallows back the urge to snark and says “Right, sorry,” instead.

“No matter,” Simmons says cheerfully, squeezing her good shoulder. “So, do you know _why_ this mad scientist is attempting to kidnap and replace the team?”

“Yeah, he’s got this weird artificial reality program he wants to plug us all into,” Daisy says. “Probably so he can do other mad science stuff once we’re out of the way.”

“Of course,” Simmons agrees, with the same sort of wry humor the rest of the team—or their LMDs; she still doesn’t know exactly when the switch happened—accepted the situation. (Because at heart, she’s _still a SHIELD agent_ and this is the kind of stuff she _should_ expect.) “I should have guessed.”

Daniels makes a little sound in his throat. Daisy could interpret it, probably, if she cared enough about him to bother.

“We’re not SHIELD,” he says, like an asshole. “Is there a reason you think this guy’ll come after us?”

“Not you,” she says, in her best _no one would want you_ tone. “Just Si—Jemma.”

“Play nice, Daisy,” Simmons orders, like Daniels isn’t _right there_ being just as rude. “And I’ve left SHIELD, remember? Why should this mad scientist think I’m any sort of threat?”

Right. Yeah. Daisy is _not_ telling Simmons about all the creepy stuff Fitz’s LMD said about her with Daniels in the room. He’d be way too smug and then she’d have to quake him and then Simmons would get mad. So…

“Could you give us a minute?” she asks him.

“No,” he says flatly.

“Will,” Simmons chides.

“No,” he says again—less rude, but still firm. “Not after what happened the last time I left you alone with one of them.”

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Daisy groans. “Are you _ever_ gonna let that go? It was a _mistake_ —”

“You call threatening, terrifying, and locking her up a _mistake_?” he demands.

“We thought she was brainwashed—”

“Stop,” Simmons says over them. There’s a sound that might be her tearing off her latex gloves, but Daisy doesn’t dare turn around to check. “Let’s not start this again. Daisy, I’ve stitched your wounds. Just remember to take it easy on your shoulder, please.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, gingerly testing her range of motion. The local anesthetic helped keep the pain of the stitching down to a dull tug, but it can’t do anything for the agony that stretches from her neck all the way down to her ribs. “Definitely taking it easy.”

For a certain kind of taking it easy that involves fighting robot doubles of her friends so she can rescue the originals, at least, but she figures that goes without saying.

“Good,” Simmons says, and gives her a little half-hug from behind. “Now, I think Will and I need a moment, if you please. Our bedroom’s on the third floor; you’re welcome to wash up in the bathroom and help yourself to anything in my closet—though I’m afraid it won’t be to your taste.”

Daisy thinks about arguing— _she_ is not the one who deserves to be kicked out here—but the chance to clean up a little after her horrible fucking day is too tempting to resist.

“Okay,” she says. “But I’ll be quick, so don’t take too long. There’s stuff you need to know.”

+++

Jemma waits until Daisy’s footsteps take on the echoing quality that means she’s on the second flight of stairs before turning to face her husband.

“Will.”

“I know,” he says, rubbing his face. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“You’re protective,” she says, and holds out a hand. He’s quick to cross the room and take it, to let her pull him down beside her. “I know. But regardless of your feelings on my team, I can’t just leave them in danger. I can’t leave Daisy to face this alone.”

“No,” he agrees, “and I’d never ask you to. But _I_ can’t just let them hurt you again.”

“That won’t happen.” She curls into his side, hugging his arm and resting her head on his shoulder. He lays his head against hers with a sigh. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but that truly was just a misunderstanding.”

Admittedly, it was a misunderstanding born of her team’s refusal to accept that she might have feelings for any man besides Fitz. She didn’t blame Will for his fury at the time—she was quite angry herself, in fact—but it’s been more than a year and, in the end, the others really did mean well. If Malick hadn’t led them to believe that Hive could sway humans as easily as he did Inhumans…

“They hurt you,” Will says grumpily, and despite the serious topic, she has to smile at the tone.

It’s only a brief smile, however, because he’s not wrong. Having her team turn on her was bad enough, but spending days locked in Vault D so soon after her year on the sunless hell of Maveth…it was traumatizing. She still has nightmares.

But there are plenty of memories that give her nightmares. The joy of waking to find Will beside her outweighs them every time. He saved her on Maveth and carried her out of Vault D and returns her hope every morning; what has she to fear with him in her life?

And speaking of Maveth… “Need I remind you—”

“No, you don’t,” he interrupts.

“—that you _also_ locked me in a cage for my own protection?” she continues, undeterred. “And stabbed me with a spear, threatened to sew my mouth shut, threatened to eat me—”

Oh, she shouldn’t have included that last one; Will’s expression turns wicked, suggesting a lewd comment is forthcoming. (Likely one involving what they got up to this morning and how much she enjoyed it.)

“My point,” she hurries on, “is that I forgave you. Surely you can forgive my team?”

His wicked expression fades into something solemn. He wears solemn well, her Will; after fourteen years in hell, his face is quite accustomed to serious lines.

“No,” he says, “I can’t.” He sighs. “But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna try to stop you from helping them.”

“You couldn’t,” she feels obligated to inform him.

“Yeah,” he says wryly, “that’s why I said _try_.” He looks down at her, evaluating her own expression. “You gonna be okay going back to the Playground?”

Jemma grimaces before she can stop herself. She knows the team believes it was Will’s idea to leave—certainly he reinforced that impression at every turn, planting himself like a tree between her and the others every time they entered a room in the lead-up to their departure—but in truth, she was the one who decided to go. She simply couldn’t stand the Playground’s dark corridors and windowless rooms after her time in Vault D.

That, and she wanted to start their life together—to move on from SHIELD and the trauma it inevitably brings.

She supposes she should be grateful they got an entire year.

“I’ll have to be,” she says, and then corrects herself, “I _will_ be. The Playground won’t bother me at all.”

Will laughs and presses a kiss to her hair. “There’s that hope. And I’ll be right next to you the whole time, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and stretches up to kiss him properly. She closes her eyes as she does so, taking it all in: the scratch of his beard against her skin, the bump of his knees against hers, the weight of his hand coming to settle in her hair, the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the windows.

It’s perfect. So much of the last year has been perfect.

“I love you,” she murmurs when the kiss ends.

Will rests his forehead against hers. “I love you, too.”

For a moment they sit there, knee to knee, hands clasped, foreheads resting together. His thumb sweeps over her knuckles, lingering on her wedding ring; she finds his in turn and taps it.

Then the _thunk_ of the pipes, indicating the shower has been turned off upstairs, draws them apart.

“All right,” he says, pushing to his feet. “Time to save the world again?”

“Time to save the world again,” she agrees, and accepts his helping hand up. “I’ll go see what Daisy didn’t want to tell me in front of you. Why don’t you make some tea?”

“Yell if she tries to kidnap you,” he says, but it’s more teasing than grumpy, and Jemma laughs as she ascends the stairs.

With Will beside her, she can face anything at all. Even the disappointed frown she knows Coulson will have waiting over her decision not to invite the team to the wedding.

(She hopes.)


	2. seven days later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a time stamp meme over on tumblr, and JD asked for seven days later for this fic. Ta-da!

_“No.”_

_“Will—”_

_“No! Absolutely not!”_

_“No one asked you, Daniels. If you’re too much of a coward—”_

_“Daisy!”_

_“—you’re more than welcome to leave while_ we _handle this.”_

 _“Or we could_ both _leave and let you clean up your own damn mess.”_

 _“Will,_ stop _. I know you’re worried, but my team—”_

 _“Your team hates the idea of us being together so much, they were_ disappointed _you weren’t brainwashed. There’s no way in hell I’m letting her plug you into a machine that can_ rewrite _you.”_

_“I understand your concern, but Daisy can’t do this alone, and we talked about this. I can’t just leave the others for dead.”_

_“Fine. Then_ I’ll _go.”_

+++

After one hundred and fifty one horrendous hours of _nothing_ , Will comes awake all at once, shooting upright as he coughs and sputters and gasps for breath. Jemma hasn’t ventured more than twenty feet from his side since he plugged into the Framework; she’s beside him in seconds, supporting him with one arm as she tears the headset off of him with the other.

“Deep breaths, darling,” she encourages. “You’re all right, you’re back in the real world. Just keep breathing. The disorientation will pass.”

She _hopes_. For all she’s spent the last one hundred and fifty one hours buried in the Framework’s code, too much of its purpose is still a mystery. The Darkhold took Fitz’s relatively simple virtual reality program and turned it into something unimaginably vast and near-incomprehensible. She can theorize with some degree of confidence that there will be no lasting effects, but she can’t _guarantee_ it.

(That isn’t why Will refused to hear of her being the one to plug in, but it _is_ why she argued so long and so hard against him—and Daisy, of course—entering.)

“Jem,” he gasps, clutching at her arms. His grip is unrelenting—bruising, even—but she barely feels it; she’s far more concerned with the wild desperation in his eyes. “ _Jemma_.”

“I’m right here,” she promises, heart in her throat. He’s still wheezing for breath. “ _Breathe_ , Will. Can you breathe for me? Is—are you having difficulty? Some obstruction, or—”

“I was dying,” he rasps, and stops her heart entirely. “When I jumped. Bleeding out.”

Horrified, speechless, she falls into him, carelessly discarding the headset so she might scramble into his lap and wrap her arms around him. Now _she’s_ the one struggling to breathe; dying in the Framework means dying in real life, and to come so close to losing him—to wait here, unknowing, when his life was in danger…

Another cough shakes Will, and Jemma could hit herself.

“Water,” she says, “of course.”

She doesn’t know what she was thinking. The Framework, through means she’s yet to identify, somehow holds all entrants’ real bodies in a sort of suspended animation, freezing them in the physical state in which they entered the program. But while that serves to spare them the indignity of catheters and IV lines, it hardly means Will’s throat won’t be paining him with the way he’s been wheezing since he woke up. It’s ridiculous of her to sit here clinging like a ninny when she could be _helping_.

“Just one moment,” she promises as she begins to draw away, “I’ll get you a glass of—”

“No,” he wheezes, arms tightening around her, and of course she freezes at once. “Stay.”

“Of course,” she says, rubbing his back. “Whatever you want, darling.”

Even as she’s speaking, however, Will jolts and, quite in contrary to his previous words, shoves her away. It doesn’t appear to be distance he wants, though; as soon as there’s sufficient space to get his arms between them, he takes her face in both hands, holding her close as he studies her expression.

“Jem,” he says after a deep breath, “we’re painting the nursery green.”

He says it with such solemn weight, it takes her several heartbeats to process his actual words. When she does, she laughs—perhaps a bit hysterically, overcome by relief and fond disbelief as she is.

“Will,” she says, “I love you. And I’m so happy you’re alive. But,” she wraps her hands around his wrists, lets the rapid flutter of his pulse against her fingers calm her, “my position remains unchanged. It’s yellow or nothing.”

This exchange has become routine in the weeks since they began trying for a baby. She’s not pregnant yet (or at least, not that they know; she hasn’t taken a test yet this week, so the possibility exists), but she hopefully will be soon, and their inability to agree on a color for the nursery has somehow become a running joke. Will’s next line is _meant_ to be a criticism of the shade of yellow she picked out, but he doesn’t voice it. His eyes are still searching her face.

“It would make me happy,” he says, tone odd.

He’s looking for something in her reaction—but what? She can’t know, and chooses to go with her immediate instinct rather than trying to puzzle out what he’s trying to elicit.

“Plenty of things make you happy,” she reminds him. “I’ve no need to agree to that horrid shade of green to accomplish it. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger, how’s that?”

Rather than answer, he slumps, an astonishing weight seeming to fall away from his shoulders even as his hands fall away from her face.

“Okay,” he says on an exhale. “Okay. You’re you. Real world. Thank god.”

He looks so overwhelmed that she nearly lets it go. Nearly.

“Will?” she prompts.

“Sorry.” He scrubs his hands over his face briskly. “The you I met in there, she was…”

“What?” she asks when he fails to elaborate. “She was what? Colorblind? Devoid of taste?”

His laugh is humorless. “Broken.”

Well, that’s not promising. She sits back a bit, taking her own turn in studying _his_ expression. There’s something haunted about his face, unsettlingly so. “Broken?”

“Broken,” he confirms hollowly. “The doctor—” He stops, shaking his head. “I don’t care what that Radcliffe guy said, that was _not_ a perfect world. Hydra was everywhere. They ran the world, basically. And their top scientist was keeping that version of you as a—”

He stops again. His eyes are distant, his expression pained. Somehow, Jemma doesn’t think she truly wants to know how that sentence was about to end. She doesn’t press him.

“I don’t think she even knew the word ‘no’ anymore,” he says finally. He cups her face again, one-handed this time, and his thumb smooths over the skin beneath her eye. “She was…nothing like you.” His hand sinks into her hair to wrap around the back of her neck, and he tugs her back into his embrace. His, “I’m so glad you weren’t the one to go in there,” is whispered into her hair.

Heart aching, she hugs him back, squeezing him with all her might. For all his words—for all she’s sure her life in the Framework was every bit as awful as he implies—she can’t help wishing it _had_ been her to go in.

It couldn’t have been, of course. Even putting aside the possibility she may be pregnant, Will doesn’t even trust the team with her _physical_ wellbeing. He would sooner have steered the Zephyr into a mountain than allowed Daisy to hook her into a computer system capable of _brainwashing_.

Still, she wishes she had insisted. She knows how many of his nightmares, even this long after their escape from Maveth, involve her being lost to Hive’s mental influence. He’s tormented by the thought, by imaginings of her twisted into a puppet like the swayed Inhumans—or, worse, driven out of her mind as his team were.

Seeing a version of her, however false, that could be deemed _broken_ won’t help at all, she’s certain. She would have spared him if she’d known.

It’s too late for regrets, however. What’s done is done. All she can do now is hold him close and murmur, “I’m here, I’m fine,” and other such reassurances, promising that she’s safe and well, and so is he.

Focused as she is on Will and his clear misery—his grip remains desperate and his breathing uneven, no matter how many times she reassures him—it takes her a shamefully long while to wonder about the others. Daisy is less than three feet away, still unmoving in her own bed, and yet it’s not until her back is beginning to ache from their fixed position that Jemma thinks to ask, “Daisy?”

“She was fine,” Will says. She can feel his head turn to regard the woman in question, but can’t find the motivation to release him long enough to follow his gaze. “Seeing the others out before she follows, is my guess. She’s probably still trying to convince Mackenzie.”

Why Mack should need to be convinced to leave a world run by Hydra, Jemma doesn’t bother to ask. There are far more important concerns.

“Are they in danger?” she asks. “If you were dying…”

“Nah,” he says, kindly ignoring how her voice breaks on the word. “Hydra was there, but we had ‘em subdued before I jumped. They’re fine.”

“Good,” she says, and holds him tighter.

In any other circumstances, she’d press for details. How Hydra was subdued, how many enemies there were, how secure their location was—countless questions spring to mind. And not just about the team; curiosity about her own fate would itch at her until she pried every detail about that other, broken her out of Will.

In these circumstances? With her plainly shaken husband in her arms, clutching her like a lifeline? With the knowledge that she came so close to losing him still at the very forefront of her mind?

For once, it’s easy enough to put her questions aside. Even those regarding the Framework and its multitude of unaddressed mysteries—and there are so very many of those.

If she let herself, she could spend _years_ studying it. Engineering and computer programming aren’t precisely her area of expertise, but if she could unlock the secrets of the suspended animation the Framework causes…even without trying, she can think of dozens of potential applications for that technology. If she could puzzle it out—

But she won’t. She doesn’t _want_ to. She left SHIELD for a reason, a _wonderful_ reason who right this moment is slumping in her arms, mentally if not physically exhausted by this likely traumatizing misadventure with her team.

She’s found happiness— _true_ happiness—in her marriage to Will. All the mysteries of the universe can’t outweigh her life with him.

“Just a little longer,” she murmurs, pairing the words with a kiss to his temple. “Once Daisy’s awoken and we’ve ensured the team are safe, we can go home.”

A certain tension goes out of Will. He must’ve feared she’d allow SHIELD’s nonsense to draw her back in.

“Home,” he echoes. One of his hands slides up her shirt to settle on the bare skin of her back. It’s not an erotic move, simply a comforting one. As ever, his touch warms her all the way through. “Can’t wait.”

Neither can Jemma.


End file.
